mrhall

I'm in my second year of using Edval - and I'm pretty impressed - I think I'm still learning how to make the best of it - but it can work through loads of combinations (so for example - we've got a mixed ability block with Geography, History, Art, Music, Drama, PSHE, RE - and allowing Edval a group of staff for each subject it was able to try different combinations of staff until it got a workable solution - and without splitting any classes. One year group - this solution was perfect - one ended up stuck with a couple of clashes - but me turning those into split classes made it workable). Feels like it is doing a lot of the thinking and trying solutions far quicker - and in far greater depth than I can see.

We've only got two screens - each has a raspberry pi behind - and we run the (free) Anthias system. Anthias - The world's most popular open source digital signage project Each pi has its own web-address - so we upload images - set up the timings - and all good. Each screen is controlled separately - so works really well for two screens - I don't think I'd want to get many more like this. But was very simple to set up.

Thank you - will get searching.

Our head of year 11 would like his year groups year 7 photos for a year book. Somehow we don't appear to have kept their year 7 photos on our shared folders (which is entirely my fault - I get the job of the bulk upload every Autumn - but somehow can't find that years...) I'm assuming these are still on SIMS somewhere? Are they extractable? I've tried running a photo report using the date of October 2021 - but this still uses their current photos. Thanks Peter

Currently we use staff photos for the user icon - so on emails, within teams etc... But we notice other schools / organisations don't - so we wonder about changing. Without an icon - looks like Microsoft creates a two letter code - but since I'm called Mr P Hall - the code would be MP. Is this code customisable? We've got a set of staff initials (all 3 letters) and this would be hugely beneficial - possibly even more so than a photo.

We should probably do just that... I think historically we've done all of them (hopefully not my job!) Thanks Peter

Sadly - that is one member of staff at a time - which is fine. But really hard going! I've got 140 to do. But does appear there isn't a bulk upload like there is for students (1450 students in 5 minutes) Thanks for sharing this. peter

SIMS (sadly - hopefully our last year!)

School photographers last week - just enjoyed the importing process for students 1200 photos in next to no time (and only 10 "unknown" which a few staff found for me this morning. Is there a batch way to upload staff? Or does this have to be one at a time? Thanks Peter

Hmm. I wonder where they will have gone inside our Onedrive? (And obviously we won't have used a sensible naming convention - so searching could be a challenge!) Peter

During COVID, and subsequently, we got quite good at using Stream to turn powerpoints into presentations - with a voiceover (and with a brave enough member of staff - them "live" on video in the corner of the screen as well). We've oddly found many of these have expired and vanished! These are NOT meeting recordings (which internet tells me last 60 days). Anyone else any experience of this - or advice? Have the recordings really been permanently deleted? Thanks peter

An annoying problem - hoping someone has found a solution. Our exam's officer needs to close rooms - and because she knows about the exams a fair bit in advance - she will often sort out the re-rooming a few weeks in advance. But - me coping with timetable changes - often makes changes that makes her re-rooming fail. SIMS seems aware this can happen - and just suggests I tell her about every change I make, and then she double-checks her re-rooming. Are there any better solutions?

We're struggling to afford photoshop - and feel that Canva affinity - or photopea - would do a pretty job on a day by day basis. BUT - for exams - we need to the students to work without internet access - and we don't think we've got the skill to let them have internet ONLY for photopea. Any ideas? Thanks Peter

Anyone managed to get a site / school licence for Canva (really we want the photo-processing in Affinity). I've filled in the form on their website - but heard nothing. I've managed to a get a personal education licence - just for me - but really want the whole school. Anyone know an email address or something? Peter

I don't use Edval - but did have similar problems when I started timetabling. If SIMS thinks there is a gap between the "double" lesson - then it will think it is two separate lessons and you'll have to take the register twice. So although our school timetable has lesson one from 9:00 to 10:00 and lesson two from 10:05 to 11:05 - when I set up the timetable I make the gap disappear (doesn't really matter whether you tell SIMS that the first lesson finishes at 10:05 or the second lesson starts at 10:00) - I think that will fix it. OR... you need to get Edval to believe this is actually a double lesson - (and you still might have to fix the lesson timing) - so that Edval isn't telling SIMS about two single lessons - but actually one double lesson. Good luck!

Also found a field called "ever in care" which gives a T for those who are PLACS. Phew!

Help! Just trying to tidy up LAC / PLAC records on SIMS. I seem to be able to edit section 10 "welfare" for each student - so that is working. Seems to be a report in SIMS already that helpfully finds those who are LAC - because it can tell they are in care today. But any ideas how to find PLAC - those who were previously in care? Many thanks Peter

We are trying to find an alternative to photoshop for our photography students - just can't afford enough licences - and photopea looks plenty good enough BUT - needs the internet - so wondering whether anyone has experience of doing this? we can probably restrict the internet so they can only access photopea during the exam - BUT - we can't stop them using the same account at home during the evening ? Any ideas? Thanks

Dear All, Our newest computers aren't going to have DVD drives - naturally most teachers have no idea what a DVD is... But English are a little upset! Any recommendations for a means of purchasing digital versions of films so we can host on a cloud system - rather than pass actual DVDs around the school. Thanks Peter

Thank you - will see about testing it with a couple of staff... Peter

Our exam officer as a folder with 150 pdfs in - these need individually emailing. Anyone found a way to create a mail merge that could attach a different pdf to each email (and yes, we can easily create a list of names - email address - attachment file name) I can find things we could pay for - but hoping someone has already solved this...) Thanks Peter

We've (stupidly) got maths teachers using Promethean - and MFL teachers using Smart boards. When we can afford to upgrade classrooms - we'd be tempted to move to interactive screens (have a couple already) - but would really like a single whole-school interactive software - and the real deluxe version would be to have something that can read promethean files (so that maths can use their resources) AND Smartboard files (so that MFL can read theirs). Lynx software can open both - but doesn't do a very good job of reading the promethean files (probably doesn't help that we're running a pretty old version of Activ....) Anyone seen anything better? Thanks Peter

Do you want to message me privately? Can you share a screen shot of a bit of one of your "activity batches" - that will show how many lessons each subject has. There is no reason why these have to be the same for each subject.

SIMS has a thing called "alternative curriculum" which is like a second layer of timetable - and allows us to create things like a maths support session - that only runs two or three times a week. (Normally in timetabler every class has to have a full weeks worth of lessons... but I wonder whether it would actually stop working if you didn't - I suspect it would be ok). So the alternative curriculum means I can timetable reading intervention... the neat bit is that SIMS remembers where the student used to be - so you can allocate them to the reading intervention - and then when they've finished and you remove them from the reading intervention - they go back to the class they used to be in, without you having to remember where they used to be. Surely some of your subjects have a different number of lessons? We'd have Art on one a week, Geography on 2, Maths on 3 ....

I don't think timetabler can handle that - the settings of times / periods / lessons is pretty key. But - say your original lessons were an hour long, and started at 9am, 10am, etc... and your new lessons were 30 minutes long and started at 9:30, 10:00, 10:30 - then you could (painfully) re-create your original plan by doubling the number of lessons -making each last 30 minutes, and every previous lesson now is a double... and then your new ones would fit. I suppose you could fill your day with 20 minute lessons - and do the same? I suppose having your original timetable written would make it fairly easy to recreate over new timings? Just how much out of sync are your new specialist classes? Happy to offer help - do email... p.hall2 at beacon-academy.org Peter